


a series in poor focus

by revolutionator



Category: Super Dangan Ronpa 2
Genre: F/F, Grief/Mourning, Mild Gore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-22
Updated: 2016-10-22
Packaged: 2018-08-23 21:26:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8343421
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/revolutionator/pseuds/revolutionator
Summary: Depending on the depth-of-field of a given scene or subject, hundreds of exposures may be necessary to achieve the desired effect.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [chaoticrandomness](https://archiveofourown.org/users/chaoticrandomness/gifts).



The school's (tiny, pathetic, meaningless; a minute at the start of the day announcements) memorial section was over. Time to go to class.

 

It felt strange, not least because Mahiru had never heard Satou's first name spoken so many times. Yukira, two kanji, 侑輝 – a brilliant helper, or at least a radiant one.

 

Satou told her she preferred to eschew the second kanji at first, through preschool and elementary and the first year of middle school. She was a firm 'Yu' for those years, with whatever suffixes you wanted to attach. She did help, but only from behind the scenes. Sometimes there would be a clean sheaf of paper waiting on your desk when you were just about to run out. A shared textbook. Wordlessly paying your share at the ticket station when you got ramen. She absorbed thanks like a sponge but didn't make a big deal out of them.

 

She didn't make a big deal out of many things. Except for one thing... One person.

 

Mahiru held her umbrella high and peered out of it for a second, just long enough to check the sky. Still grey. She pulled it back close to her. She couldn't say why she was still lingering near the gate, like she was expecting some kind of closure.

 

'I'm so sorry,' a quavering voice said next to her ear. 'I... I wish the school took it more seriously. I...I can't imagine who would do something like that...'

 

'It's fine, Tsumiki,' Mahiru said. Her voice wasn't entirely unkind. 'I'm upset, but... Just take care of yourself. Please.'

 

The other girl hunched under her own umbrella, sniffling. Her fingers shook, sending the umbrella careening from side to side.

 

'You know,' Mikan said, in a tiny voice, 'she was always so... so... um, so, so angry... Don't take that as me speaking ill of the dead! It's not... I just, I hope she's... She's happier, now, if she can be...'

 

Mahiru let out a small, curt hiss through her nose. She hoped it sounded less like a grunt and more like a laugh. She wasn't sure which of the two she meant it to be.

 

'I hope that too.' She unclenched just enough to smile. 'She wasn't like that way back when, you know.'

 

'D-Do... Do you think it was because of... t- the reserve class?'

 

'I think...'

 

Students began to file out into grounds from the main hall and then back into assorted classrooms, in clumps of two or three. A horde of faceless unrecognisables and also a few members of her own class, well ahead of the pack, noticeable by how they were the only ones aiming for the main building. The throng of nobodies – Satou's classmates – headed for the shabbier building to the side.

 

'I think it was for all kinds of reasons,' she said. Her voice remained very quiet.

 

Mikan looked at her with trembling eyes and knock-knees, her grip fumbling so often on the umbrella that it lurched from side to side. Mahiru felt irritated by her, and then bad for feeling irritated. Truthfully it was a relief to have Mikan here. Her other friends would have felt cloying, whether through Hiyoko's jealousy or Ibuki's tone-deaf cheeriness.

 

'I'm sorry,' Mikan said again, eyes brimming with tears.

 

'It's not your faul- OW!'

 

Someone bumped into her. A blustering, short haired boy, shadowed by a much taller girl with braids. Kuzuryuu and Pekoyama. They had been hanging around each other a lot more lately. Mahiru noticed. She had noticed a lot of things she didn't want to think about ever since... well, ever since that whole mess had started.

 

'Watch where you're going, you fucking idiot.'

 

'YOU bumped into me,' Mahiru replied hotly, but he and Pekoyama were already too far away to hear her.

 

Mikan stood where she was, whimpering a little, refusing to comment on the rudeness or Mahiru's overblown reaction or anything at all. Mahiru was sick of her.

 

'I need to go,' she said. 'See you in class.'

 

'O-Okay...'

 

She turned away before Mikan started to cry.

 

-

 

'What club are you joining?'

 

_Is she talking to me?_

The girl before her was very pretty, with a long mess of wavy hair and narrow, gleaming eyes. Tall enough that Mahiru could have taken her for a second year, or maybe even a third, had she not been wearing the red badge of a first year.

 

The girl's icy face thawed a little. When she smiled, she was markedly prettier. Mahiru's pulse relaxed along with her.

 

'I'm just kidding,' the girl said. 'I know who you are. You beat me in the city contest.'

 

_Oh, no..._

 

The guilt at forgetting the other girl's face must have been obvious, because now she was giggling.

 

'You beat me by like, ten places. I wasn't on the podium with you or anything. Still, maybe you want a change of pace from winning all the time? Softball club? Brass band?'

 

'I'm joining the photography club,' Mahiru said as the tall girl was about to suggest home economics. 'It's... Everything, to me. To my family. I can't imagine doing anything else.'

 

A shadow crossed the tall girl's face for a moment. It was a sadly familiar expression to Mahiru, who had met many photographers of her own age and gotten along with none of them.

 

_But maybe this time it could go differently...?_

'Were you the girl who photographed the crows? Sa...Satou-san?'

 

The tall girl looked taken aback. She looked shocked enough that you might think no one in the whole world had ever remembered her name before, which made Mahiru a little guilty that it had been half a guess. Satou or Sasaki, one or the other. Still, the photographs themselves had been good! Vague and occasionally amateurish, but charming.

 

'I liked them,' she said. She hoped her sincerity shone through. 'I don't usually like crows... Who does? You made them look almost cute, though.'

 

Satou looked away from her to stare at the sign-up sheet. There were multiple names listed already, which was only to be expected. Who in this modern age didn't have at least some experience with photography? Now that she looked again, Mahiru noticed that a few of the names had been runner-ups in the contest she and Satou had participated in. Serious up-and-coming photographers.

 

Rivals.

 

'You're better than all of them,' Satou said. 'So they're probably going to be cold to you. 'I'm just telling you that now, so it's easier to swallow.'

 

'I know that,' Mahiru said. She did.

 

'Not all of them will, though,' Satou said. She smiled at Mahiru and it made her insides coil up tight in a way she'd only read about in magazines. Heat pooled in her stomach. Her fingers were shaking, and she didn't know when they had started.  'I'll be nice to you.' 

 

'Thanks,' she said.

 

Satou's second smile caught her off guard. It was playful, and warm, and strangely genuine after the guarded first attempt. If someone could capture that smile and do it justice, Mahiru thought, they'd come first in any contest you could ever hold. If you got a smile like that on film no one would ever want to stop looking at it.

 

'How do you write your name again?' Satou was asking her, so that as Mahiru told her the kanji she could write them on the sign-up sheet before she even wrote her own. Then she smiled again over her shoulder and waved goodbye.

 

Mahiru was very nearly late to fifth period that day. 

 

-

 

'How's it going at school?' Mahiru's father asked later while haphazardly loading mis-matched socks into an already overloaded washing machine. 'Any clubs yet?'

 

'Just the one,' Mahiru said tersely. She took a handful of socks out and began to sort through the clothes herself. 'Photography.'

 

'I hope you have fun.'

 

_I will_ , she thought mutinously.

 

-

 

Mahiru looked at the ceiling.

 

You could still hear the rain from inside the classroom.

 

It blurred Ms. Yukizome's soft voice.

 

It blurred Mahiru's thoughts.

 

Maybe she could just go back to the dorm room...? But what would she do there? Look at a different ceiling? Wait for the same thoughts to catch up to her?

 

The ceiling fan spun out of beat with the rain on the roof.

 

It made her head hurt.

 

-

 

'Nervous?'

 

They stood in front of the club room doors together. Satou went to open the door, then checked Mahiru's face.

 

'Damn. You totally are!'

 

Mahiru swallowed. She squared her shoulders in her starchy, uncomfortable uniform. She stepped forward and pushed the door aside herself.

 

The overall impression was that she had been expected. Everyone's faces turned towards her and then their expressions set into something more anticipatory than welcoming. There was an entire three seconds of silence, ultimately broken by the noise of the baseball club practicing outside.

 

Satou breezed in easily. In an instant she was ahead of Mahiru, giving her a route to follow towards the cluster of shy first years and a back to focus on instead of those curious, envious faces. Some of the first years were staring at her, but that was easy enough to brush off. She looked straight ahead, trying to determine who the club leader was...

 

Aha.

 

'Eida Satsuki,' Satou whispered below her breath. 'She came second.'

 

Mahiru did recognise Eida. Tall, wiry, thin-lipped. She wore very thick glasses and a bright yellow duck-shaped barrette in her hair. She'd been wearing the barrette at the contest too. If Eida recognized Mahiru it wasn't clear from her face; she looked at each first-year in turn for about five seconds, never changing her expression. It felt like being swept by a security sensor.

 

'Welcome,' she said, 'to the photography club. There are precious finite resources here, and so we won't tolerate casual photography. That isn't to say that beginners aren't welcome. We will teach you.'

 

She put her clipboard on the desk.

 

'The issue is people not willing to try to better themselves. For this purpose, we are holding a miniature contest for first year members. Please select one image from your portfolio – unprofessional photographs are acceptable for novices - and create an entirely new composition using your old image as the prompt. I and the other club members will judge.'

 

A pause. Her eyes fell unmistakeably on Mahiru's face. The slightest ripple of movement travelled the room as everyone else followed suit.

 

'Even if you are somewhat of a celebrity already,' she said, the disdain blatant in her voice, 'if you don't continually push to improve, we have no use for you.'

 

Satou's hand shot up so quickly that it bumped into Mahiru's arm. She turned to look at her, too startled to question what Satou might say once Eida called on her but filled with a reactive dread all the same.

 

'Don't you think it's a bit rich to start picking on first years right when they join just because they're better than you?'

 

'Satou,' came a warning voice from the back of the room. It was the supervising teacher.

 

Eida was unfazed. She looked at Satou as though she were a cockroach. 

 

'Getting used to conditions and criticism is a core tenet of photography,' she said. 'If you can't abide by that, perhaps you could consider the fine art club.'

 

Mahiru felt a body's worth of blood pool in her cheeks. The fine art club was a school-wide joke, a place where kids gathered to chat and doodle fan art and then go home early.

 

'Alright,' Satou said, completely ignoring how everyone around her was subtly shuffling away, averting their eyes, pretending she wasn't there. 'But if you have such an obvious grudge I don't think you should be in charge of judging the entries.'

 

Another ripple of dissent. Some of the second and third year members looked amused; more looked angry. Eida and the vice president entered into a quiet but furious discussion, their backs turned away from the other members, while the supervisor walked to the front of the room to offer further advice.

 

Mahiru looked at Satou's profile. Her heart wouldn't stop drilling away, _thumpathumpathumpthumpthump_ , and it only got worse looking at Satou's taut lips and frowning eyebrows. She wanted to say something, but couldn't figure out what. Thank you? You shouldn't have done that? Why did you do that?

 

Thankfully Satou noticed her. She gave her the smile again, curtailed as it was by frustration. Her hand brushed Mahiru's hand. It had a curious effect on all the parts of her that Satou hadn't touched; her skin flushed, her legs felt weaker and her stomach thrashed even wilder than it had before.

 

'Thanks for standing up for me,' she whispered. 

 

Satou shrugged, like the gratitude was embarrassing to her, but she tapped the back of Mahiru's hand with her fingers.

 

'We will have a jury consisting of five teachers and five existing club members,' Eida said. Mahiru was busy holding Satou's hand with her own, gently, the most accidentally-on-purpose tangle of fingers and thumbs and palms, and so she barely even heard her.

 

-

 

She upended the dresser.

 

It took so much effort to push a big thing like that over. After doing it she wondered why she had bothered. In films they always did big dramatic things to vent their feelings, but did it ever really work?

 

All she had done was create a big mess to clean up.

 

Sigh. She squatted down next to the dresser and strained to push it back the right way up.

 

Replacing everything was more cathartic, which surprised her; her body moved on autopilot like it had for years living with her family, righting pencil pots and filing stray papers into clear pockets. The room was so still, so quiet, that she imagined she could hear the dust re-settling around her.

 

It was

 

too still

 

and

 

too quiet.

 

It was

 

monstrous.

 

She tucked the folders onto the shelf and wiped her dusty hands on her bare thighs. The work was physically harsh, but that wasn't why she was covered all over with a cold dew of sweat.

 

She needed to talk to someone about Satou, but also she could never. Not to her classmates. Not to Hiyoko (never to Hiyoko). Not to Ibuki or Mikan. Not to her teacher.

 

Who did that leave? Her father?

 

Mahiru barked with laughter then covered her mouth immediately. Where had that come from? She hadn't even cried since this morning and now she was laughing out of nowhere. 

 

'What am I supposed to _do_ ,' she asked the empty room, but it remained both still and quiet. 'You can't just sweep this away. Someone has to answer for it. Something has to happen.'

 

Still.

 

Quiet.

 

-

 

They were the only ones in the library, and collating their prints was silent, careful work. You could have heard a pin drop.

 

For the first year challenge she and Satou had both used their previous competition entries. Satou traced her finger over the laminated copies of crow shots, humming tunelessly through her teeth.

 

Mahiru's hands hovered over her own print: her mother seated on a bench in an autumn grove, hands cupping the camera on its tripod in front of her. Her mother's face was turned away from the screen, the lips cast in just enough shadow that her smile, or lack thereof, was obscured. 

 

'Do you know what you're going to shoot yet?'  
  
Satou sat down next to her, spreading the pictures out in a neat grid. One photograph showed a crow with its mouth wide open, cruel little eyes focused on the lens before it; others showed them poised to take flight. The last photograph was a landscape of the open sky, marred only by the scattering of black blurs in the distance. Mahiru could see what she was going for, even if the execution didn't quite measure up.

 

'I've got ideas...'

 

'Cool,' Satou said. 'I can't think of anything. Help me?'

 

'Um...'

 

Mahiru looked up into the neon light overhead. That was an easy enough question to answer, but suddenly all she wanted was to turn it back around on her, deny herself of any responsibility. When she looked back down, the other girl was still looking at her, waiting for a response.

 

'Word association?' Her voice stammered. 'Like, make a list of things crows remind you of...'

 

'Well, that's a start.'

 

Satou started writing things down in her notebook. Mahiru caught glimpses of words like 'trash', 'vermin', 'night', 'death'. She reached out to touch the paper. Satou stopped writing. There was a lull in Mahiru's breathing that she hoped Satou wouldn't notice.

 

'Death is a pretty expansive genre,' she said.

 

'It sure is,' Satou said.

 

'Graveyards, maybe? Or a funeral... That's pretty tasteless... Never mind.'

 

' _Morbid_ , Koizumi,' Satou said. She grinned.

 

Underneath the table, one of her shoes rubbed against Mahiru’s. Mahiru, shocked, stayed still. Satou’s foot nudged hers again. When she looked up, red faced, off-kilter, Satou was the exact opposite: calm, collected, smiling her precious smile again.

 

'I like the trash idea,' she said.

 

Mahiru nodded, though she’d already regretted suggesting it. She looked at her print again, unable to look Satou in the face for longer than an instant. She wished… She wished she could just snap it, in all its glory, and then keep it to herself to look at in private…

 

A photograph of her mother looking eternally away to an unreachable horizon. Satou across the table, her foot still tapping insistently at Mahiru’s own, present, real.

 

‘I can help you with the crow pictures,’ someone was saying in Mahiru’s voice, ‘if you model for mine.’

 

She was so afraid that Satou might laugh.

 

Satou didn’t laugh. She rubbed the side of her foot with her toes and then relented altogether.

 

'I’m flattered,’ she said breezily. 'Let’s do it tomorrow.' 

 

-

 

An unofficial therapy session in Ms. Yukizome’s classroom after sixth period.

 

'Just tell me whatever's on your mind,' the teacher said.

 

‘I NEVER liked her,' Hiyoko was saying in a voice that anyone with half a heart could tell was fake, full of lies. Hiyoko was harsh and unrepentantly cruel to anyone with a visible weakness, but Mahiru understood that. This was petty, though. This was Hiyoko displacing her own vulnerability into something else.

 

‘I miss her!’ Ibuki said in a voice that was all wrong, all distorted and full of oversaturated sadness, a parody of grieving that usually would make Mahiru laugh and right now made her want to scream, and scream, and scream.

 

‘I need to go,’ Mahiru said, and ran.

 

-

 

Satou stood in the park, in the corner before the waste disposal area, right in front of the benches. Her chin up, defiant, proud; her legs slightly apart; her beautiful hair streaming out, glowing almost lavender in the eerie light of the spring dawn.

 

She wasn’t smiling.

 

Mahiru was sure that that was the reason the portrait wasn’t working. It needed to be a contrast to the one of her mother. It should be brighter, stronger, filled with a greater clarity to spite the dreary backdrop. Satou should look right into the lens and smile with all the warmth she did in a school day.

 

But she didn’t.

 

Mahiru, too shy to prompt her like a usual subject, put her camera down. ‘Let’s shoot some crows.’

 

They took great photographs of the crows hopping amongst the trash, nestling in the dumpsters, sorting through spilled plastic bags. Satou perked up considerably. She took pictures in a frenzied, energetic way that Mahiru couldn’t stop watching. It was amateur, sure. It was… cute.

 

They sat down on the bench together once the sun was high in the sky and most of the crows had flown away.

 

'You can call me Mahiru,' Mahiru blurted out all at once. 'We're friends, aren't we? You don't have to keep calling me Koizumi.'

 

Satou blinked at her. She smiled, but it was more thoughtful than usual; her hands folded over her knees. Her hair hung low over her face so that her eyes were shadowed, so that Mahiru could just see the curve of her lips and a glimpse of her flushed skin. She wanted, she realised with a sudden, horrible jolt, she wanted to push Satou's hair back. She wanted to feel it in her hands, she wanted to be closer, to feel her breath on her own cheeks, to... to...

 

'Okay,' Satou said. 'Sure. But... I don't want you to call me Yu. Not yet.'

 

'Not yet?'

 

Her heart skittered and writhed like a caged animal. What did that _mean_?

 

'Not yet,' Satou repeated. She breathed out, a little too sharply, then turned to the other girl. She touched the tip of Mahiru's nose with the pad of her finger. 'Once we're closer.'

 

'Okay,' Mahiru said. She wished her face would stop betraying her by blushing so violently. 'Still...'

 

'Don't worry. I'll call you Mahiru.'

 

That made her blush even harder.

 

-

 

'Koizumi-san?'

 

Slotting back into focus to see her teacher's worried face.

 

'Sorry,' she said. 'I couldn't sleep last night.'

 

'Alright,' Ms. Yukizome said, looking unconvinced but unwilling to press harder. 'You can always talk to me after class...'

 

Mahiru considered it. Rejected it. Shook her head and faked the best grin she was capable of producing.

 

'I'll go to bed earlier,' she promised.

 

-

 

Satou was in her room. Mahiru's actual room. She was looking at all the photographs on her wall and shelves, all the books, the cheap colourful bedspread bedecked with woodland characters. Mahiru herself was restless and ever-fidgeting. What was it about having a friend over for the first time that turned your everyday boring things into a debut gallery?

 

It felt too hot, but she was shivering. She held the back of her desk chair to keep her steady as she crept up behind the other girl. 'See anything you like?'

 

Good, that was good! Light and airy. She was still mentally congratulating how she'd kept her cool when Satou turned towards her and dashed it all to pieces. Her posture was all wrong; her back curved over, her lips a tight crease of worry running parallel to her worried eyebrows.

 

'You're _really_ talented, ' she said hoarsely.  She was trying to keep her voice neutral, which set off even more panic signals than the words – and those were upsetting. That was what people said when they started to get jealous or resentful, Mahiru knew. She'd had so many bad conversations that started out that same way about her photographs – and it wasn't fair. She felt the panic settle in, slow and then very quick, _she doesn_ 't want _to be friends with me anymore I_ ' _m too much of a threat to her ego and it_ ' _s not fair when I like her so much…_

'I just don't get it, ' Satou continued, her voice flecked with some unidentifiable emotion, 'you're such a normal kid. Your room is even set out like mine? But you're like, leagues ahead. '

 

'Sorry, ' Mahiru whispered. Her mind was blank. This couldn't be happening.

 

Satou continued staring at the family photograph in front of her. Her hair wafted lightly in front of her eyes, but she didn't raise a hand to fix it. Mahiru ached to do it for her.

 

She was so pretty.

 

Mahiru could think it now, in the instant where she might lose her. Satou was so pretty. Her smile made her heart ache and her breath skip and her fingers clamber for her pockets where they couldn't give her away by shaking or sweating or fidgeting too hard.

 

'It's not fair, ' Satou said.

 

'I know, I know, I'm sorry. '

 

She reached for her, eyes still open but unable to see, because to see was to recognise the expression on Satou's face and if it was resentful Mahiru didn't want to see it at all. Her hand connected with Satou's shoulder harder than she would have liked. She gripped it.

 

'Why are _you_ sorry?' Satou looked at her with genuine bafflement. 

 

'H…Huh? '

 

'I'm not angry at you, ' Satou said. She looked amazed at the very idea. 'I'm angry at those stuck up snobs in third grade who want to bully you out. You're like, special, Mahiru. Really special. They should be so proud to have you. '

 

Now Satou was looking at her, right in the face when she was already so flustered with getting her emotions all fired up for the wrong thing, but her hair… Her lovely, soft hair, it was wafting in the way and Mahiru was close enough…

 

She was close enough to tuck it away with her hand

 

so she did.

 

'Mahiru, ' Satou said softly.

 

'You're nicer to me than anyone ever is, ' Mahiru blurted out before she could stop herself. 'and you stand up for me, even when it's hard, even when you love photography too and I… I…'

 

Satou took hold of her hand from where it was hovering uselessly in the air. She made soft sounds with her teeth, like soothing a frightened cat, and her arms were around Mahiru's body, and her lips were so close to her own lips. 

 

Her eyes shone. Was she smiling?

 

Mahiru closed her eyes before the kiss, so she didn't see.

 

-

 

Instead, she saw so many things:

 

Eida Satsuki's chagrined face as Mahiru received top scores for her portrait, juxtaposed with Satou's secret smile as they both left the club room together;

 

Satou's collarbone, only the slightest bit exposed under the shirt of her summer uniform, the scraped and scuffed lengths of her arms;

 

A sea of fresh faces at the photography club, with one snub-nosed blonde girl striking a particular chord;

 

Paint spilled all over her own final class pieces. Insects released into her backpack. Threatening notes cut out of tabloids. Cold, impassive faces when they reported the culprit. Satou's frustrated grimace, her inability to combat something much bigger than yearly rivalries. The snub-nosed blonde girl's grin;

 

The sunlight on graduation day, how good Mahiru's silhouette had looked together with Satou's when they were linked at the arms;

 

Worried crinkles in the corners of Satou's eyes whenever Mahiru tried to get as close as she had in her bedroom;

 

Bright banners for her own inauguration at Kibougamine and bare walls for Satou;

 

Hiyoko, Ibuki, Tsumiki, an awkward cacophony of noise and sound and colour – but Satou was also there, smiling less and often failing to fit in;

 

Broken glass;

 

A lifeless blonde body;

 

Shattered pieces of a ceramic vase;

 

The awful moment when she looked into Satou's face and realised exactly how deep it was, how far she was willing to go for her – just plain, bossy, unassuming Mahiru – and how Mahiru didn't have the will to condemn her for it. (How could she? 

 

In picture books a great sacrifice like that gets shown in rich stark detail to make a striking scene, but they never capture the sinking feeling in a girl's stomach. They don't show the perpetrator's fidgety uncertainty, the panic in her eyes like a trapped animal.

 

Mahiru touched Satou's shaking hands and promised her she would delete the evidence. Anything, anything was worth it to take that look off of Satou's face);

 

Another lifeless body with dark hair clinging to her face in a greasy, bloody mess...

 

-

 

Mahiru's fingers brush the edge of a frame on the floor. She knows what it is before she picks it up. It is a portrait. It is a study of a girl in greys and murky purples, solemn-eyed, staring unsmiling into the camera. It is the photograph that won Mahiru her first year junior high school competition.

 

It, like everything else – like everything else about Satou, as far as Mahiru could see – is just a cautionary tale of unrealised potential.

 

She puts the photograph in the drawer of her rearranged dresser

 

and does her best

 

to forget about it.

 

 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for the opportunity to write this. I really got stuck in the groove of wondering what made Satou 'tick', given our lack of information on her outside of her connection to Mahiru... And ultimately I decided to run with that frustration for Mahiru herself.   
> If I'd had months and months this piece could have gone on forever! I had a real blast, and I hope you enjoy it even half as much as I did writing it.


End file.
